


Rescue

by PeaceHeather



Series: Marvel 'verse [12]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Loki Does What He Wants, One Shot, Rescue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-26
Updated: 2016-05-26
Packaged: 2018-07-10 06:28:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6969889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeaceHeather/pseuds/PeaceHeather
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint's a pretty easygoing guy, which helps when Tony goes missing for several days. Tony is rescued by an unlikely ally. No one is quite sure what to make of this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rescue

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea what this is. The image struck me one night and I had to write it, never mind the other fics I have staring me in the face and demanding my attention. Nooo, this one had to be written instead.
> 
> It's got an unfinished feel to it; I don't expect to come back and add more, but as soon as I say that, I have an image in my head that continues the story. I do not even know.

Clint was a pretty easygoing guy, most of the time. Sniper, you know, they were sorta famous for being cold-blooded bastards. Calm. Level-headed. The job sort of required it.

Tony Stark had been missing for three days now, and Clint's ability to keep his cool was getting a little frayed around the edges. Steve had already tried to get into a shouting match with anybody who would hold still long enough to let him vent his frustration, which was… understandable, but not actually helping.

"Do you really want to aim that at me?" Bruce had asked, before taking himself off out of the line of fire.

And okay, Steve was pissed that SHIELD wasn't doing more (they were doing literally everything), pissed that they hadn't been aimed at a target yet, just generally pissed in general that his friend had gone missing.

Clint couldn't blame him, but all he could picture when he looked at the guy was the scrawny little terrier he must have been before the serum kicked in, picking a fight with everything that got in his way whether it was a good idea or not.

"Yo, Uncle Sam. I will put you on the ground if I have to. Back off."

Steve blinked, but he backed off. He dragged his hands through his hair and paced in a little circle, but that was probably the best Clint was going to get. "I'm sorry," he said. "I am. I know I'm—I just—"

"We get it," said Tasha. Good old Tasha. If anybody could keep calm better than Clint, it was her. "We get it, Steve."

"I don't see how you guys can keep from losing your minds over this," said Steve. "It's been three days. He could be anywhere. They could be doing anything. He could be—" he visibly steeled himself to say it— "he might not even still be alive."

"We keep calm because that's the mission right now," said Natasha. "It's not that we don't care. It's that we're holding all that rage in reserve, to let it out at the right target, at the right time."

Steve sighed, and sat down, his head in his hands. "This was a lot easier when the enemies wore uniforms," he muttered at the floor.

"Tell me about it," sighed Clint.

* * *

"How much longer do you think it's going to take?" he asked, hours later. It was just him and Tasha, squatting in Tony's penthouse in the event that his kidnappers actually called in a ransom or did… anything else that would give away their location. Ms. Potts had Stark's AI at her disposal and was doing things that she claimed could work as fast as SHIELD, or even faster; which was all kinds of illegal, but then it was sort of an open secret among the Avengers that if Tony Stark and his crew went evil, no one would even know it until they'd already finished taking over the world.

So far, nothing. Clint was a pretty easygoing guy, but this was testing him a little.

"Patience," said Natasha.

"I've been patient."

"Our job isn't to locate him," she reminded him, sitting next to him on the couch. "Our job is to bring him back, after other people have located him. We just have to wait until that happens."

"I hate waiting."

"No wonder you're such a lousy sniper."

He nudged her with his shoulder, and she smiled and nudged back. "Steve's right, though," he said. "It shouldn't take this long. It was one thing before he was really on SHIELD's radar, but now that he's an Avenger?"

"Maybe Thor will have something when he gets back."

"Yeah, maybe."

But it had been three days, and Thor had been gone, off to Asgard, for two of them. If he'd had an answer, he would have come back by now, and they both knew it.

 They sat in silence for awhile, not bothering to turn on a light as the sky outside grew dark.

"Heard a rumor that there was more than tech keeping him hidden," said Natasha. "Which would actually narrow it down, paradoxically enough."

"Oh?"

"Intel is that the dictator in Latveria has access to magic. So on the one hand, he can block our tech, but on the other, that just means searching von Doom's properties in Latveria and elsewhere, instead of the whole planet."

"Unless he sold his services to someone else."

"There is that," Natasha allowed.

Clint sighed. "Fucking magic."

* * *

It had been four days since Tony had gone missing. A relatively routine mission, if any mission the Avengers were sent on could be called that, had turned into an epic clusterfuck when the bad guys called in backup that they really should not have had, and when the smoke cleared, Steve had a broken leg, Bruce and Thor had both been hit with some kind of drug that left them a slurring mess, and Clint and Natasha were unconscious. It was at least an hour according to SHIELD's measurement before anyone was even aware that Tony was no longer among them.

Fuck. He really could be anywhere.

So yeah. Clint was an easygoing kinda guy, most of the time, but even his calm could wear thin.

When the alarms went off in Stark Tower, Jarvis announcing in his soothing voice that there was an intruder in Tony's own labs, Clint was out of bed, armed, and moving before Jarvis had even finished his sentence.

"Jarvis, would you do an emergency override on the doors, please? I know you don't usually let us in but we'd really like to stop whoever this fucker is."

"I am afraid it is too late, Agent Barton," said Jarvis. The alarms began cutting out, one by one. "The intruder is no longer present."

Clint stopped in his tracks. "What do you mean, _no longer present_?" he demanded.

"Thermal and motion sensors indicated an unauthorized person in Mr. Stark's personal laboratory, separate from Stark Industries research and development floors. I activated the alarm systems, but after seventeen seconds, my sensors indicated that the person was no longer present."

"How'd they get in?" asked Natasha, coming up behind him. "Or out?"

"I am afraid I am unable to answer that question, Agent Romanov." Clint shared a glance with her as Jarvis continued, "Logs indicate that no access codes were entered at any of the laboratory doors, nor do I have a record of them opening."

"Would you let us in anyway?" Natasha asked. "Maybe we can find out what they wanted."

"While I cannot determine how the intruder entered, based on energy readings, I can identify that one of Mr. Stark's personal arc reactors is no longer in the laboratory."

Clint pressed his lips together, taking a deep breath. He was an easygoing guy, really, he was, but…

"Fucking magic," he said.

* * *

Steve was back. Bruce was back. Fury and Hill had joined the party, and Ms. Potts wasn't actually supposed to be there, but there was no way in hell they would have been able to keep her away. They had  _just_ gotten Jarvis to release the security footage when the alarms sounded again.

"Jarvis?"

"The penthouse balcony has registered an unknown person, accompanying Mr. Stark," said the AI. "Sir appears to be unconscious; the person carrying him has requested entry to the penthouse." There was a pause. "Correction. The intruder has broken in the penthouse door and is moving toward the elevator, and is presently ignoring my requests to identify himself or herself."

"Defense systems?" asked Potts. Because of course a paranoid bastard like Tony would have some kind of perimeter set up around his home.

"I dare not engage with the intruder for fear of injuring Mr. Stark further," said Jarvis calmly.

"Ms. Potts, for your safety, I'm going to have to ask you to remain here," said Fury. With a nod and two quick gestures, he sent the rest of them off, up the stairs and elevator both. Clint had a tranq dart loaded in his bow, strong enough to drop an elephant; Tasha favored a more permanent solution to their problem, but they'd need to question this asshole before they neutralized him quite that completely.

Clint was an easygoing guy.

Until the elevator doors opened and he saw motherfucking _Loki_ standing three feet in front of him, with an unconscious, bloody Tony Stark slumped in his arms, looking like a ragdoll that had been used as a chew toy by some damn big dog.

Time seemed to slow down for Clint as the adrenaline hit; the arrow was fired off and Clint was launching himself at the fucker, knives in hand, before his bow had even hit the elevator floor, a stream of profanity leaving his lips in several languages.

The arrow bounced off of some invisible barrier before it could pierce Loki's eye. Loki stepped back, looking only moderately annoyed, and raised one foot in time to plant it in the middle of Clint's chest and send him ricocheting back into the elevator.

Tasha fired her gun, to the same total non-effect; Loki only rolled his eyes, which did not help Clint's mood at all. The fucker's mouth was moving, but Clint had hit that level of rage that tuned out sound almost completely. He Jackie-Channed his way up the sides of the elevator and leaped forward again, but this time Loki ducked, as if Tony weighed nothing in his arms; he pivoted to follow Clint's trajectory, dodged the incoming shield that Cap had thrown, freed one arm so that Tony's legs dropped, and made one sweeping gesture through the air.

Clint hit the floor, tumbled… and couldn't get back up again. Invisible force held him flat on his back, with Loki somewhere behind his head. Clint writhed his arms and legs, but that was the best he could do. It was like a giant foot the size of his entire torso had him pinned, and he couldn't lift more than his ass more than an inch off the floor.

So he twisted his neck till he could see Loki, flipped the knife in his hand, and flung it as hard as he could at the fucker's calf muscle.

Watched with satisfaction as it sank in deep. Bastard didn't think to protect below his waist, now did he?

Loki bared his teeth in pain, and for a second the invisible weight on Clint's chest increased till it was shoving the breath out of his lungs, but then it let up suddenly.

"I do not have _time_ for this," said the fucker. "More to the _point,_ neither does Tony Stark."

"Why bring him back here?" Natasha, sounding only a little breathless. Clint craned his neck till he could see her, pinned to the wall about six inches off the floor, same as him.

"To save his _life,_ and I had thought you were the intelligent one of the company, Agent Romanov. At least, while Stark is incapacitated, and Banner is in his more _mindless_ form."

"You want to help Tony Stark, you'll set him down— _carefully_ —and back the fuck away from him," said Director Fury, from somewhere Clint couldn't see.

"Do you or do you not have a healing hall somewhere within this palace?" asked Loki. If Clint didn't know better, he'd say the bastard actually sounded exasperated.

"We'll get him there without you," said Steve, and Loki scoffed.

"Yes, while you are completely unable to move; I'm certain that will work out well for you." All the same, he stepped over to the couch, and laid Tony out; when one of his arms fell limply to the floor, Loki actually picked it up gently and rested Tony's hand back across his stomach.

"You will see to it that he recovers," said Loki. "I will know if he does not."

"Why the hell do _you_ care?" Clint couldn't help but ask.

"Because he is _useful_ to my plans, as are you all," retorted Loki. "Although if you are all this spectacularly obstinate and unable to prioritize, I may have to reassess that."

"Injuries?" asked Natasha. Yeah, Clint guessed that was actually important.

"Whatever sorts of harm your human bodies can sustain from electrical shock," said Loki. "He was beaten, repeatedly, so I suggest you search for internal damage. He was denied sleep. His captors gave him only water, and likely an insufficient amount of that, but again, as he is human I have no idea what constitutes a _sufficient_ amount. According to one of the minions I questioned, his cell alternated between extremes of cold and heat. I know not whether that caused him actual harm, or mere discomfort. When I came to retrieve him, they removed the device from his chest and destroyed it; I retrieved another for him, as you are no doubt aware, but I have no knowledge of how long Stark is able to survive without it before he sustains damage. I have done what I can to keep him alive; the rest will be up to you. And to him."

"What did they want from him?" asked Tasha.

"We can discuss that when I return," said Loki. "Which I will do, after Stark has recovered sufficiently."

"Is the threat neutralized?" asked Fury; it chafed to hear it, the way it sounded to Clint's ear as if the director was taking Loki's words at face value. But then, Fury could play-act when he had to. Let Loki think he'd suckered them all, and figure out his plan later.

"The _threat_ boasted that he was the greatest sorcerer Midgard has ever seen," said Loki. His voice took on a smug edge. "Which is not saying much. I believe you have an idiom in your language… something about a large fish in a small pond?"

"Is this where you start up your speeches about real power, again?" asked Fury drily.

"No. This is where I state simply that, where von Doom is a large fish compared to what you are used to, I am rather more of a shark. And that Midgard is a very small pond indeed, compared to the ocean that is Yggdrasil and all her realms." His voice hardened again, as he stepped back further. "This is also where I remind you that Stark is your priority, not his captors, and not me. Von Doom will not trouble you again. I have made clear the price he will pay, should he fail to heed my warning."

"Uh, yeah, asshat," said Clint, "you may not have figured this out yet, but if you want us to take care of Stark, you're going to have to let us—"

Loki vanished, and so did the pressure on Clint's chest.

"—up."

Tasha was at Tony's side in an instant, two fingers at the side of his neck. "Pulse is weak, and rapid. I really don't like his color, either."

"I've got a medevac unit on the way," said Fury, one hand to his ear. "ETA ten minutes."

"Jarvis?" Bruce called, lifting himself off the floor painfully. "Are there any blankets on this floor? We need to keep Tony from going into shock if we can."

"Are you safe to be around Stark, Dr. Banner?" asked Fury, and Bruce leveled him an unreadable look.

"Whatever Loki did to me, I _can't_ Hulk out right now. So yes."

Loki was doing things to Clint's team. And they seemed unsure whether or not to feel _grateful_ for it.

Clint was feeling perhaps slightly less than easygoing, at this point.

* * *

They took it in turns to watch over Tony in his room, in case Loki came back. Or Doom's people, or any of the other people who seemed to want Tony dead on a semi-regular basis. Whatever. They shared bad coffee and bad jokes, and generally did what they could to stave off a bad mood.

The electric shocks had done a number on Tony; weird tissue burns in bizarre places, and of course him having a hardcore metal _piercing_ where his sternum was supposed to be had done his internal organs no favors. They were saying he might have permanent nerve pain once he woke up. They were saying he might have brain damage.

Loki had acted like he would be pissed if Tony didn't make a full recovery.

Loki had acted… Clint couldn't put his finger on it, but there had been something different about him. Maybe the lack of speechifying, or the part where he'd acted to defend himself without moving on from that to gleefully slaughter them all. Loki had acted _sane_ , and that was just a little much for Clint to wrap his head around, given his own prior experience with the so-called god.

Would he still act sane if Tony came out of this with permanent damage?

The man himself had made it through his PET scan and into a bed without going into cardiac arrest. As far as they could tell, the shrapnel and arc reactor situation was the same as it had always been. He was responding well to the IV fluids to combat the state of dehydration he'd been in. They'd been able to wake him, briefly, but he'd only looked at them blearily, recognized Bruce, said, "Oh, good," and passed back out again. The doctors were saying that since he'd been without sleep for so long, that was probably nothing to worry about.

The weird thing was that while the scans had shown internal injuries, consistent with the nasty bruising and welts and other external signs of a beating, the injuries themselves looked to be weeks old; half-healed, and looking good. Making good progress.

" _I have done what I can for him_ ," Loki had said. They speculated, late at night, over what he might have meant.

* * *

"Mm. Hey."

"Tony? You with us, man?"

"Workin' on it." The Avengers had never assembled quite so fast as when the text had come from Steve, who'd been sitting watch this shift. Tony swallowed in a dry throat, still working on getting his eyes to stay open and focus; it was a look they all knew from their own personal experience. "Where?"

"SHIELD medical," said Bruce, as Tony finally got one eye open; the other was still a little swollen and didn't want to cooperate just yet. "I've got ice chips."

"My favorite." He let Bruce spoon a couple into his mouth, which was how they knew he was still out of it. Usually he'd demand bourbon to go with them, as the only way to _really_ treat a dry throat. "How long?"

"You were missing four days; you've been asleep since you got back, two days ago. So not quite a week."

"'Kay." His eye drifted shut again. "Surprised you found me so fast."

They all shared a look with one another. "We, uh… we didn't, Tony." Steve was the one to break the news. "I'm so sorry."

The other man's forehead wrinkled, then eased with a muttered "ow". "No?" Both eyes opened this time, and he took in their faces. "You were looking, though." It wasn't quite a question, but they could hear the doubt lacing his voice. Out of it, definitely.

"Yeah, _god_ yeah," Bruce answered. "We never stopped. But they had something blocking our tech."

"Yeah," said Tony. "Magic. Hate that stuff."

"Can you tell us what you remember?" asked Natasha, and Tony frowned.

"Little early to debrief…" He blinked sleepily, his eyes unfocused again. "You've got me on the good drugs."

"You were pretty banged up."

"I know." And even as disoriented as Tony was, they could hear the flat tone of a man trying hard not to remember what he'd just been through. Clint winced, and even Natasha looked uncomfortable.

"Is there anything you can tell us before we let you sleep?" she asked.

"Mm." He swallowed. "More ice first." They watched him swish the chips around in his mouth as they melted. "Yeah. Something weird. Loki was there." Half-asleep, drugged to the gills, Tony still noticed it when they all stiffened; he managed to peel his eyes open and look at them with more clarity than they'd yet seen. "Not the way you're thinking. You're thinking, like, bad guy stuff. That wouldn't be weird. It'd suck, but… 's not surprising, right?"

"So what was weird?" ask Tasha, gently, carefully.

"Green Bean kicked their asses," slurred Tony, a lopsided smile stealing across his face for a moment. "There was… they were, y'know," he waved his hand, the IV line on the back of his hand swinging a little, "havin' their fun. Stark piñata, with electrodes for added zip. And then Loki shows up. An' we thought we knew what he looked like, pissed off, right?" Tony rolled his head on his pillow to get a look at them with his good eye. "From the invasion, right, _I am a god, fear me, kneel puny_ … whatevers. Lunatic fringe."

"We remember, yeah," said Steve, sounding a little amused.

"Well this Loki was a lot saner," said Tony. "And when they din' lissen to him…" There was a pause while he licked his chapped lips. "Need more ice."

"Now I know you're just drawing this out for the suspense," said Bruce, but he dutifully spooned more chips into Tony's open mouth.

Tony shook his head. "Jus' thirsty. Been a bit," he muttered, and they all sobered. "But yeah. He told them to knock it off or else, and they laughed in his face, and then he _or-elsed_ all over the place. Sumbody needs t' tell Thor his little bro is a badass when he wants to be."

"Just to be clear, here," said Bruce, as Tony's eyes slid shut.

"Loki got me out," said Tony. "It was Loki. Dunno why, but he got me out." He subsided, and Clint thought at first that maybe he'd fallen asleep, but then he raised his hand again and flopped it in the general direction of his chest. "Think he stole this, too. But he did it for me. Brought it, plugged me back in. Dunno why."

"He didn't say anything, or offer an explanation?" asked Natasha, but Tony didn't answer except to sigh heavily, his head listing a little to the side as he sank deep into sleep.

* * *

Thor came back, sober, saying that while their eye in the sky did eventually locate the facility where Tony had been kept, it was only after the mayhem and carnage had come through, disabling whatever they had been doing to hide from SHIELD and everyone else. Asgard's surveillance found only dead bodies, but they did at least provide SHIELD with coordinates to go and check the location out itself.

Fucking Latveria.

SHIELD handled that; the rest of the Avengers were still on duty keeping an eye out for Loki to turn up somewhere, so whether or not SHIELD could come up with enough evidence to finally nail Latveria's dictator for _multiple_ human rights abuses, Clint didn't really hear.

The other thing that Thor had brought with him was something called a healing stone, which he used on Tony as soon as it became clear that the nerve pain was going to be a thing. Watching Tony suddenly jolt as shooting agonies zipped along his legs or arms or down his back was… not fun for anyone concerned. Mostly it had made Clint want to go shoot things. But then Thor took what looked like an ordinary rock, crushed it to powder over Tony's bare skin, and they all watched as the powder turned to sparkling light that absorbed into his system.

Tony hissed, and they all went tense. "Cold," he said.

"Is it bad?" someone asked, but Tony just shook his head.

"Minty fresh. Just takes a second to get used to." After a couple of seconds he sighed, and relaxed; judging from the glances people gave each other, it was clear no one had really realized just how much pain Tony had been in. "I don't know how it works but we've gotta get some of these on Earth." He rubbed his chest speculatively. "That's… huh."

"What is it?" Bruce asked.

Tony blinked, and whatever he'd been about to say was forgotten. "Nothing. Just interesting. How do they work, big guy?"

"I am afraid I am not well-versed in the magical principles—"

"Gah, magic. Why did you have to say magic?"

Thor just chuckled, and so did the rest of them, seeing Tony so obviously back to his old self.

* * *

At the celebration that night, Thor finally brought it up. "Director Fury said my brother was here."

The table went quiet.

"He was," Natasha said eventually. "We haven't seen a trace of him since, but he said he would return once Tony was better."

"And he truly aided Tony Stark? Did not bring harm to any of you?"

"He defended himself, but that was it," said Clint. Not that he _wanted_ to admit it, but it was the truth.

Thor looked thoughtful. "We were unable to keep him imprisoned, after his attack on your world," he said. "He escaped, then allowed himself to be captured several times more, only to again break free of whatever confinement Odin had contrived for him."

"Sounds like fun," said Bruce, one eyebrow raised.

The corner of Thor's mouth twitched in something not quite a smile. "After months of this, Loki finally stood in the throne room and reminded Odin that he had claimed Loki was his son, and that this had been a response to Loki's accusation that Odin had only taken him to be a useful pawn in later schemes. He asked whether or not Odin would wish for Loki's accusations to prove true, and then he reminded us that even if that were the case, he was far too useful to simply be thrown away and forgotten."

"So your dad just let him go free?" That was Bruce, frowning as he poked at his dinner.

"No." Thor shook his head. "No, not at all. They spoke privately, though I know not the details, and it was announced that Odin had created some other form of punishment for my brother to endure. He accepted it voluntarily… until one day a few months ago, when he came to us and said that there were more important things than his supposed atonement and the appeasing of Asgard's wounded pride, and that it was time he attended to those things instead. He vanished, and none has heard from him since."

"He said we, the Avengers, factored into his plans," said Natasha. "Tony especially, or at least that's the impression I got. He said we would be useful."

The thoughtful expression was back on Thor's face. "I cannot see what nefarious thing he could scheme to achieve that would involve you, my friends," he said slowly. "And it is also significant that since he left, we have seen no more mischief from him; no taunting as he escapes imprisonment over and over, no incendiary words… no plots against Asgard or any other realm that we have been able to discover. There have been only rumors of his presence in other realms, and what he did there, to whom he spoke or why, often remains a mystery."

"Pardon the interruption, sir, but there is an unauthorized person on the penthouse balcony, requesting entrance," said Jarvis.

Clint resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Of course there was. And yes, when Tony brought the outside view up on one of his screens, the person was Loki.

"Not gonna bash the door down this time?" he muttered.

Somehow, Loki heard him. "I am not in as great of a hurry this evening, Agent Barton. However, I do come bearing gifts for our host."

"Yeah, that's not ominous at all," quipped Tony.

Out on the balcony, Loki sighed. "The device in your chest. My understanding is that you would not wish for its components to fall into enemy hands." He held out his own hands, and there were broken bits of metal and glass in them. "I took the liberty of retrieving them."

"Definitely less insane than last time," said Bruce.

"I've been working on that, yes," replied Loki. He stepped through the glass separating indoors from outdoors; like, phased through it like a ghost or something. Immediately, ceiling panels opened and a _whole_ lot of artillery dropped down and trained itself on his position.

 _Defensive perimeter_ , Ms. Potts had called it. Jesus, Tony really was as paranoid as Clint had thought.

Loki lifted his gaze to take in the weaponry, and held still, but otherwise did not seem especially perturbed. His open hands, still holding the bits of Tony's other arc reactor, did not move.

"Jarvis, provisional access, protocol 'Do Ya Feel Lucky'," said Tony, and most of the weapons retracted back into the ceiling. Clint did not miss, however, that quite a few remained trained on the fucker, and followed him as he moved.

"Welcome to Stark Tower, sir," said Jarvis in his usual polite tones. "I am obligated to inform you that your access extends to this floor only, specifically this room and the dining area adjacent, and that if you approach any of the interior doors, I will not hesitate to open fire."

"Understood," said Loki. He seemed completely at ease. "Stark, where do you wish these?"

"Set 'em on the bar," said Tony, fidgeting with a pair of heavy bracelets, one on each wrist. "And say what you came to say."

"Very well," said Loki. The weapons tracked him as he moved. "There are three things, and I shall keep them brief: first, my pleasure at seeing you recovered. I presume Thor brought healing stones from Asgard?"

Thor took a step closer, looking at Loki with what could only be called longing. "I did," he began, but Tony cut him off.

"Keep going."

Loki nodded. "Second, my gratitude for your service in my previous plan, when I appeared to invade your realm."

Okay, what?

"Uh, you might have forgotten this, but you lost that one, Sparklefingers. Took me ages to repair the hole you left in the floor with your _torso_."

A sudden smile sprouted on Loki's face, but Clint couldn't tell whether he was just covering something else. "I remember quite clearly. Apart from that incident, however, I assure you that everything went _exactly_ according to plan."

There were glances back and forth, but it was Thor who broke the silence at that one. "Speak plainly, brother."

"I believe I did," said Loki, more irritated now. "Everything that occurred on Midgard, from the moment of my arrival until we returned to Asgard, went exactly as I had hoped. With apologies to Agent Barton for the, I believe you call it, 'collateral damage'."

"Over eighty people in two days, and another seventy-four in the battle itself," said Clint. "Women and kids. Fuck your collateral damage and fuck your apology."

Loki sobered, and tipped his head in acknowledgment. "How many people reside on your planet? It numbers in the billions, the last I had heard. You did exactly what was necessary to save them all, and not coincidentally get me away from the Chitauri and their master, and back to Asgard where I could recover."

"Yeah, no, if this is where you try to play yourself off as some kind of victim, then fuck you too," said Clint.

Loki smiled again, but this time it showed a little more teeth. "Not at all, Agent Barton. I was not controlled in the manner that you were, and I take responsibility for the choices I made. Those deaths are on my hands. However, several billion more are not, and I share with you the responsibility for that as well. I will not apologize for the steps I took to cause your victory to happen."

"Recover," said Thor. His arms were folded and his eyes narrowed. "From what?"

Loki's smile grew even wider, and slightly less sane. "How fascinating, that this is the first time anyone from Asgard has bothered to ask that question."

"Brother?"

Loki's lip curled in a sneer, but he forced it back down. "The third thing I came to say. Asgard knows him as the Mad Titan." Thor sucked in a sharp breath, and Clint glanced over just long enough to see his eyes grow wide. "I will not use his name, though Thor might, after I have gone. The Mad Titan is your adversary in a way that I never was, nor even attempted to be. His crimes include the deaths of entire galaxies, and he is coming for your world next."

"Loki—"

"He is said to be indestructible," said Loki, raising his voice just enough to cut his brother off. "I, however, have found a way to end him, and I shall do it. Having your aid in this matter would be preferable. Having your cooperation in my plan is not necessary, for I _presume_ you will act to defend your world whether you involve yourselves with me or not. Even so, you should know that if you wait to defend your world until he has already come, you will almost assuredly be too late to do anything other than entertain him with your deaths." The man's face was pale and his voice even shook a little as he added quietly, "Assuming he is merciful enough to allow you to die."

The room was completely silent.

"You have no wish to welcome me as your guest," said Loki after a moment. "With good reason, I concede. And you are unlikely to believe anything more I might say, without corroboration from Thor. Therefore I shall not waste your time any further this evening. Nevertheless." He made a graceful gesture with one hand, and was suddenly holding something about the size of a poker chip between two fingers. "When you have sent Thor to Asgard for more information, and when he has returned, and after you have conferred and argued and reached the inevitable conclusion, use this." He set it on the bar next to the reactor parts with a glance toward Thor. "You remember how, I trust."

"I do, brother."

Loki gave a formal nod to them all, not quite a bow but close. "Then I take my leave."

And just like that, he was gone.

Fucking magic.

It was a good thing Clint was such an easygoing guy.

**Author's Note:**

> Tip of the hat to Like_A_Hurricane for some of the backstory referenced between Loki and Odin.
> 
> Thanks for reading! If you want to leave extra kudos, you're welcome to stop by [my Tumblr blog](http://peaceheather.tumblr.com) and say hello.


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